Happy Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving blessing from Herb Silverman, President, Secular Coalition for America:

"Let us take a moment to think about where the food we are about to enjoy has come from and to acknowledge those who worked to bring us this food. Let us appreciate the earth, the sun, the air, and the water needed to nourish the plants and animals. Let us thank the farmer who cared for the plants and animals and the migrant worker who toiled to harvest the crops. Let us thank the laborer who processed the food, the truck driver who brought the food, and the grocery store workers who displayed it. Finally, let us thank our friends who prepared this meal and have provided us with the opportunity to be together and share each other's company."

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sometimes Comedy Says It Better

I'd like to share a YouTube video that popped up in my subscription box this week. It's by an artist/comedian atheist I started following for his ability to use wit to show the absurdities of theism in a fun and entertaining way. This latest video is called If God Were A Car . Please watch, rate and sub.

God Appointed Hitler

A YouTube user named ProfMTH makes a good point in his latest video titled, "God Appointed Hitler? (The New Testament, Government, & Morality)." Passages in the New Testament clearly gives governments in power a divine mandate. These passages have propped up the Divine Right of Kings through centuries of oppression, yet Theists claim that morality can only come from the Bible and that without it, Hitler's actions could not be judged as "wrong." This video makes a point that the Bible would have supported Hitler's power. The fact that he gained power would be treated as a sign of blessing from God himself if judged with the splintered moral ruler of the New Testament.

What's more, and is not addressed in the video, is that the entire US revolution would have been an offense to God himself and Tea Partiers would be damned for eternity for not gladly following Holy Decree. Of course, a Christian or Theist could counter (as they often do when pointing out the horrors of the Bible) that one must look at the "context of the times" or read it as metaphorical or as a teaching. However, I think it's clear why those passages made it into the Bible when Constantine needed a religion to legitimize his power and the power of all who came after him. It is in direct opposition of passages such as these that the words of the First Amendment were written, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Dembski Fail

I'm not sure how well received Hithchen's arguments were at a Christian school, especially after said school coached the audience beforehand, but reading from A Texan Baptist news journal article, I noticed that Dembski is quoted as saying “Secularism can be just as ideologically driven as religion,” because "Atheism demands evolution."

Another theist missing the point entirely, but I'm sure it went unnoticed among the already-indoctrinated crowd. Atheism, first of all, doesn't demand anything. Not even science demands evolution. If, after review, it was found that all observable evidence didn't support evolution, scientists would be the first people looking for an alternative explanation for the diversity of life. Also, looking at evidence and coming to a conclusion isn't ideologically driven, it's driven by a desire to explain the world around us according to the world we see around us.

Creationists don't understand this and never will, but if they had no church, no Bible and no one telling them that the world was created 6,000 years ago, and they began gathering the evidence around them and looking at it objectively, they'd never come to the conclusion that a magical being made everything. That is the stuff of superstitious, ancient nomadic tribes that had no grasp of science or critical thinking. So-called evidence for Biblical creation always begins with the premise that Biblical creation is true. Creationists will even lie and distort the "evidence" to convince other believers that they have a gold mine of evidence for God. Who, now, is ideologically driven? The group that starts searching, already knowing their conclusion or the group that starts with a question?

Atheism: In Your Words

The Guardian has released an article about a video on the YouTube channel, The Thinking Atheist, that features viewers telling their own search for answers that eventually led them to atheism. Also poignant is the reaction that many of them got from families and friends after "coming out," which I think many of us can relate to. Here's the link.

California Election Results

All I can say is that on this dark day, I can at least be happy that CA has a better memory than the rest of the nation. It took the rest of the US just four years to forget twelve years of Republican fail and only two years to forget eight years of Bush fail. Of course, they refuse to remember anything important in the meantime, like this stuff.

This entry is being cross-posted on all my blogs in honor of the victims of American illiteracy and ignorance, such as the great Ted Strickland and Russ Feingold.